There exist many hair band articles and many hair dressing articles in the prior art for holding a user's hair in place. It is often desirable that these hair bands or hair dressing articles be decorated or otherwise ornamented for aesthetic appeal.
Applicant is aware of three prior art hair bands having differing forms of decorative ornamentation. U.S. Pat. No. 1,652,462 issued Dec. 13, 1927 to Stephens for a hair Dressing Article. U.S. Pat. No. 3,211,160 issued Oct. 12, 1965 to Miller for a Hair Band With Detachable Cover. French Patent No. 1,217,287 issued to Pochet on May 3, 1960 for what the Applicant believes to be a Hair Band And Decorative Cover.
Stephens teaches a wire form hair band having ornamentation formed of a fabric envelope. The fabric envelope is held in place by the width spacing of the wire form and the length of the wire form so as to tighten the envelope on the form. Also disclosed is the use of a flexible band instead of a wire form within the casing or cover. Stephens does not teach nor suggest making the fabric envelope removable, in that manner to enable changing the ornamentation on the hair band. Rather, what is taught is adding rosettes or other ornamental jewellery by sewing through the cover, and in the case of the flexible flat band, sewing through perforations in the band.
Miller teaches a flexible hair band having a detachable cover secured by releasable fasteners. What is disclosed is an ornamental cover which wraps around the upper surface of the hair band and attaches to the hair band at either end of the hair band and at the apex of the hair band. The hair band is of the conventional horse shoe shape type. In particular Miller relies on snap fasteners or boot-like or equivalent pockets at the ends of ornamental strips to hold ornamental strips in place over the upper surface of the horse shoe shaped hair band.
The Poget teaching merely illustrates the use of a Velcro.TM. strip or a strip of like hook and loop releasable fasteners to releasably attach a decorative ornamentation to the surface of a horse shoe shaped hair band without encasing the hair band.
Applicant is also aware of U.S. Pat. No. Des. 315,036 which issued Feb. 26, 1991 to Leopold for a Hair Band. The hair band consists of a toroidal shaped tube of fabric and containing within the tube, and running contiguously around the interior of the tube, a circle of elastic which acts to draw the tube together at the center so as to act as a hair elastic for holding a ponytail or like hair configuration. The circle of elastic is free floating within the tube.